In remembrance...

Gordon Bitner Hinckley - Beloved Son, Brother, Husband, Father, Prophet - 1910-2008

Sweet President Hinckley was such a great example of optimism and endurance. He has been the prophet for most of my life, so he holds a dear place in my heart. I am so glad that he is with his precious Marjorie, and I look forward to hearing valiant words from our next prophet.


This is a picture of President Hinckley's visit to the White House to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor given a United States citizen.

When this picture of Marjorie was published, one woman wrote in and said, "If people don't believe Mormons are Christians, just have them look at this picture of Sister Marjorie Hinckley."

This is so sweet! What wonderful examples these two are to us.

Tiger Virtues and Fly-swatter Volleyball

Although I haven't posted anything for quite a while now, I promise I'll be better and post updates more often. At the beginning of the semester, both Will and I thought that I would have a heavy load because I'm trying to cram 4 years of college into 2. However, this winter semester has brought schedules that we weren't anticipating.

It turned out that Will is gone from 9 every morning until 8 every night. I only have about 8-10 hour days, so my schedule is dramatically lighter than his. I feel bad for him being gone all day, every day. Luckily for me, I have 2-3 hours every evening that I can do homework or grocery shopping or (hopefully) temple trips.

Thus far, classes are going well for both Will and me. Will, with his 8 diffferent classes, is staying caught up on his reading and assignments, and he's enjoying a few of the books he's reading. One of them is the well-known book by Stephen Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The other is a book about principles for winning in golf and in life. It's called Tiger Virtues byAlex Tresniowski, and Will is really enjoying how it presents the eighteen principles that power Tiger Woods' mastery of golf, and translates them into life lessons.

I am enjoying my classes, too. I am taking two finance classes this semester, so I'm learning a lot about how we'll handle money when we actually have some! :) I'm also taking a religion class that studies other religions and how they are practiced in homes. Right now, we're studying Judeaism, and the information is so interesting. It's neat how other religions have some of the truths that we have and how they include these truths in their practices.

I also started my internship this week at Courtyard at Jamestown Assisted Living Community. The first day was a little intimidating because I didn't really know anyone other than my supervisor. She gave me the assignment of going to lunch with the residents and then going on the scenic bus ride with them, too. Lunch was at Olive Garden and went well. The scenic ride was up Provo Canyon and through Midway and back. The bus was warm and had piano music playing, so I wanted a nap half-way through it, but it was fun. That's all I did the first day and I was mentally exhausted when the day was over because I was so worried about what and what not to do. I hadn't been given any instruction really, so it was an interesting day.

The second day of my internship went really well. I had so much fun! I started by giving manicures to the residents. After that, I went to the enhanced care unit (for those with memory loss) and played games with them. We played fly-swatter volleyball and all they had to do was sit in their chairs and swat at balloons. It was so much fun to watch and see them have fun together. I ended the day with visits to some of the newer residents to see how they were doing. I only got to visit one apartment, but it was fun to just sit and talk with the couple who lived there. I am excited to continue working at the Courtyard. I know I'll learn a lot about senior citizens, and I can't wait to make friends with them, too.

Christmas Break!

Christmas break was wonderful! Will and I worked a reasonable amount of hours and were still able to relax and make fun plans together. The best part was that we weren't didn't have deadlines or pressures on us due to homework. We got caught up on sleep and had time to do whatever we wanted!

This was Christmas at the Shirley home. Will said it was the most presents he'd seen at one time, but the fastest he'd seen anyone open presents.

Christmas shopping for each other was fun for both of us. We did most of it alone or online, but when we were at the same store, we were both on a secret mission that the other couldn't know about. On one of these secret missions, Will found some boots that were a risky buy. I opened them on Christmas morning and absolutely loved them! (And contrary to popular belief, this is the newest style: boots and plaid flannel pajama bottoms....oh ya.)

Will also gave me a violin because I have been wanting to learn to play for some time now. It was a major hit. I loved it and my sisters loved it, too!

Will got some snazzy sunglasses that have a Thundercats logo on the side. He was pretty excited to open those!

Some of the funnest activities we did were simple card or board games. We played Egyptian RatKing about a thousand times over the holiday break.

We also played a game called Stack. This is a dice game where each player has to stack their dice on top of other players' dice in order to score points. Will is quite the strategic player and he got some pretty high scores!

This is Will's and my amazing duet together. He played the piano and I played my violin. We sounded absolutely marvelous to ourselves, but in reality, we weren't that impressive. We sure had a lot of fun, though, and we'll both improve our skills over time. We were both learning!

Mom's cousins, Janene and Brian, came to visit with their children for a night before New Year's. We went out to dinner with them, and I got to have my very first strawberry colada (don't worry, it wasn't spiked). It was a fun night, and we stayed up playing games waaaayyyyy past our bedtime: 2:30am!! Our new favorite game is Ticket to Ride now because Brian brought it with them. This is a picture of me not drinking my colada but drinking Will's Coke.

For the break, Will decided to grow a little bit of a goatee, and he's proud of what he was able to accomplish over just a week of growing!

For New Year's Eve, we went to Grammie's house and ate a lot of food and played some more games, one of which was Headbands. Here are my mom and I wearing our sweet headbands:

I don't even have an explanation for this picture other than "Good morning!"

Will and I had a great break together, and we're looking foward to the new semester beginning!!

Grades!!!

Bri and I had a great semester here at BYU in the Fall. We both saw dramatic improvement in the first semester married than the semester when we were engaged. I guess thats normal... Anyway, we decided to celebrate by going and buying books for next semester... and eating at Mimi's cafe. We figured we deserved it for the hard work we did during the fall and also as a "pick me up" for the next semester. Anyway, we both are happy with our progress in school and we hope that the last couple of semesters here will be similar to this last one.